Tremtex

Tremtex is working in conjunction with clinical and research partners at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine to develop an intervention to help Parkinson’s disease patients manage their debilitating motor symptoms. Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects more than 1 million people in the United States and 7 million people worldwide. The standard of care for Parkinson’s disease is medication; however, the effectiveness of medication wanes as the disease progresses. Another option for patients in advanced stages of the disease is deep brain stimulation (DBS), an expensive and invasive surgical procedure with strict eligibility criteria. This leaves a significant number of patients without an effective intervention.Thus, patients with PD, for whom medications are no longer effective and for whom DBS is not an option need an alternative treatment method in order to alleviate motor symptoms and increase accessibility to treatment.

Tremtex is developing a product, called STIMband, which will work in conjunction with medication and will facilitate therapy at home. STIMband implements transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) technology as a non-invasive solution that addresses the needs of PD patients by delivering small amounts of current to the motor cortices through electrodes. Multiple research studies have established safety for tDCS and suggest that it results in the reduction of motor symptoms and thus improved quality of life for PD patients. The value of STIMband is that it brings effective interventions to PD patients in the comfort of their own homes without compromising safety or usability. Tremtex is currently refining the design and conducting testing for iterations of STIMband and will begin human factors testing over the summer with an IRB.